Adam Silver really wants you to think this will all blow over

Adam Silver went on ESPN’s Get Up on Monday morning, mostly to continue expressing his wish that everyone will agree to pretend that Daryl Morey never tweeted anything about Hong Kong.

“Free expression is a complex issue. I think there’s also a lot of misunderstanding in China, from our fans there, because they feel I’m being a hypocrite,” Silver said. “They say, aren’t you the same commissioner who stops people from talking about officiating? How’s it possible that you aren’t addressing this?...This is core political speech... We’re looking to other U.S. corporations to see what that standard should be going forward.”

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Adam Silver in Japan earlier this month (Jae C. Hong/AP)

If the experiences of Apple, Marriott, Mercedes, the Gap, American Airlines, Delta, United, the fashion industry, or the movie industry are any guide, that “standard” is total capitulation to the Chinese government. The NBA is clearly lurching that way. After a protesting fan was hamfistedly ejected from a Sixers preseason game, a large anti-China protest was allowed to proceed at a Nets home game on Friday night. But those protests could be few and far between this regular season. Tucked into a broad interview published Monday about cracking down on racist and abusive fans, NBA chief security director Jerome Pickett said that the league was banning fans from expressing “anything that is non-basketball-related.” A league official clarified to the Daily News that fan behavior policy was modified back in August, before the Hong Kong controversy, and that “non-basketball-related” refers just to hate speech, not political speech.

But the extent to which political speech will be tolerated has yet to be tested, as protesting fans at a Wizard game had their signage confiscated. Your money and fandom are welcome at an NBA arena, just not your inconvenient opinions.

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For its part, the Chinese government has slightly backed off its anti-NBA sentiment, according to a New York Times report. But just slightly. On Saturday, a state broadcaster excoriated Silver on CCTV, threatening “retribution.”

“To please some American politicians, Silver has fabricated lies out of nothing and has sought to paint China as unforgiving,” the CCTV commentator said.

Silver has “problems in his character... once someone’s morality goes wrong, he will receive retribution sooner or later,” the broadcaster said in response to the commissioner’s claim that China wanted Morey fired.

In the face of that, Silver was still sunny. “Obviously, there needs to be mutual respect on both sides,” he said Monday. “Respect for our system, and respect for their system if we’re gonna play in their country. My belief is we will get back on track.

“People need to step back. Everybody’s made their points now. It’s not a secret in China how we operate, there’s hundreds of thousands of Chinese kids who go to school in the United States. It’s no secret here about what’s going on in China.”

Silver also confirmed a report of an uncomfortable meeting with Lakers and Nets players in China. “It’s true, it was a tense situation, the players were frustrated,” he said Monday, before appearing to address criticism that players should have been brought home as soon as China took issue with Morey’s tweet. "My point to the players was that we’re partners. We have a huge investment in China, we’ve been at this for a long time, and how do you guys collectively feel about what we should do? The consensus in the room was, we’re here to play games, we should play those games.”

Silver also defended the players like LeBron James who have issued mealy-mouth defenses of the Chinese government. “Take LeBron, who has an incredible track record of doing things that change people’s lives in the United States to be asked to comment on a difficult foreign issue is, I think, again there’s free expression and he should say how he feels...Freedom of speech also means the freedom not to speak.” Of course, this is a ridiculous standard to apply to LeBron. LeBron hasn’t been getting criticized for not speaking. He’s been getting criticized for calling Morey “misinformed.”

According to Adam Silver, no one’s misinformed. Everyone and all sides in an international conflagration are right. Not only should everyone shut up and dribble; they should feel good about it.

Correction: This article previously stated that fans were ejected from a Wizards game for pro-Hong Kong signage. Wizards fans had signs confiscated, but no one was ejected.